Art and the USA 1945 -1989

Art and the USA 1945 – 1989

from Jackson Pollock to the Guerilla Girls

WEA tutor Rosanna Eckersley

£42 for 5 sessions starting Wednesday April 23^rd 2025, 10.30 – 12.30

Danbury Parish Church Meeting Rooms, Main Rd, Danbury CM3 4NG

This exciting new course examines the wide range of artistic styles and practices in the USA in the years after WW2. The energy and innovation is clear, see the scale and mark making in Jackson Pollock’s painting.

The tutor aims to encourage close-looking at artworks, to set art into artistic and historical contexts, including the Cold War, and to create an environment where students are comfortable talking about art. For some images our discussion will be just to figure out what is going on! We begin with Abstract Expressionism (Pollock, Rothko, Reinhardt, Frankenthaler, Newman, Krasner and more), moving to Rauschenberg’s very different practice and Jasper John’s Flag (1954-5). We will look at 1960s pop art (Warhol and Lichtenstein) and, thinking about sculpture, we’ll discuss Minimalism and, for site-specific art, Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty (1970) among others. We end with artists who focused on identity and worked for societal change: Judy Chicago’s feminist The Dinner Party, Betye Saar’s The Liberation of Aunt Jemima (1972) and the Guerrilla Girls’ significant public interventions – highlighting the paucity of women’s art in public.

Course Ref Q00021970

For more information and to enrol click HERE